


Lying to Children

by Sintina



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Christmas Eve, Drinking, F/M, Feels, Pork Chops, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-05 18:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5385182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sintina/pseuds/Sintina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bra wants a "Christmas space story" and Vegeta remembers an unforgettable planet from his past <em>happened</em> to have a winter festival not unlike humans' Christmas.</p>
<p>"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"<br/>- Death, in the Hogfather for TV (2006), adapted from the book, by Terry Pratchett</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lying to Children

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karashi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karashi/gifts).



> We're Just Saiyan Secret Santa story exchange. 
> 
> Holy crap this was so much fun, but also terrifying and nerve wracking! I wanted my giftee to like it. And she does! I hope you do, too. Merry Christmas! ~ Sintina

Bra’s third hot chocolate of the night brims with marshmallows to the point of overflowing and steams sweet vapors up to her chin. She’s nestled in the thick living room carpet, legs crossed like in school, looking up at her mother on the recliner with eyes all aglow. Trunks sits next to his sister on the floor, his gangly fourteen-year-old arms stretched behind him as he leans back on his hands. Though not bored, since he’s never heard this story before, Trunks isn’t entirely interested, either. His eyes keep wandering to the TV slightly behind him where Vegeta flips channels with such speed the remote is sure to shatter again. Trunks keeps waiting for the plastic to crackle and his mom’s inevitable flip-out to end this requisite story time. 

Vegeta is only in the room for Bra. Since she was three years old, Christmas stories were her favorite Christmas Eve tradition. The routine is the same every year. After baking thousands of cookies with grandma during the day, she insists on Christmas story time before her sugar high wears off. Vegeta likes watching her eyelashes flit towards the middle of the evening’s final story, before she passes out for the longest night of a young child’s life. There’s probably three or four more to go before she’ll be sated tonight, though. His wife is just closing the first book. 

Bulma finishes reading the Magic Toyshop, an intricate pop-up book set on Christmas Eve in an old toyshop, about a tin soldier and a string-toy ballerina who fall in love. Bra reaches up on every page to make the soldier’s arms and legs march or to spin the ballerina on her string. When the ballerina is purchased as a gift, the toy soldier follows her on a perilous journey through the city to live with her in her new home. The snow falls on the town Christmas morning as the two lovers are reunited and the children who received them in their stockings are delighted with their presents. 

“They’re together forever!” Bra sighs in the dreamy voice of a Disney princess. Vegeta is immediately annoyed that at five years old she can pine like some starlet and thinks about disconnecting the cable for real this time. Bra notices the grumpy look on his face and chirps: “Papa! Will you read us a story?”  
A prison warden’s smile traces up Bulma’s mirthful lips as she gives Vegeta the look implying he’s a caged animal with no way out of this.  
Unmoved, Vegeta reminds everyone: 

“I don’t read bedtime stories.” 

“Tell us a real Christmas space story then!” Bra blurts and claps her hands. She’s had the ‘You’re half alien, so you’re stronger than other humans and you have to play nice,’ talk, so she knows her Papa is from outer space. 

Trunks’ eyes widen, because he’s had the ‘your father was a murderous world destroying villain before he met your mother,’ talk. He stares from his mother to his father, waiting and wondering how they’ll mitigate this situation. 

“Christmas wasn’t practiced anywhere else in space,” Vegeta considers and corrects himself, “similar winter customs are prevalent throughout the universe. Just no Santa Claus.” 

Bra sticks her nose in the air, feeling the need to show off her brilliance, and sounding just like her mom, 

“That’s ‘cause Santa travels super-fast on Earth, but not fast enough to go to other planets on Christmas Eve too, right Papa?” Vegeta’s sigh is ragged. He doesn’t know how to answer her in a way that won’t anger Bulma, because he refuses to tell the fat-man lie to their daughter like everyone else. Trunks rescues the conversation:  
“Santa has really great ki control.” He scoops Bra up with a hand on each side of her waist to make her ‘fly’, her arms and legs spread wide like the kids on Peter Pan, since she doesn’t know how to really fly yet herself. As she giggle-squeals in his arms in circles around the room, Trunks’ enthusiastic explanation narrates her journey. “Santa’s flying at warp speed, just like me and dad can do, but he is also carrying all of these packages.” He grabs a few throw pillows and perches them on Bra’s back to illustrate the difference. “So it’s about endurance as well as speed, right, dad?” 

“As far as I can tell, your Santa Claus and other mythical beings like him have their own parallel pocket dimension in which time flows differently than our own.”  
“That’s not a bad idea, Vegeta!” Bulma squeezes his knee, because she knows how he feels about the subject and here he is giving the kids logical reasons to believe in something as silly as Santa Claus! 

“Not mine, unfortunately,” he admits, turning off the TV and leaning back on the couch with his hands behind his head, “I was told that’s how one of Santa’s counterparts on another planet gets the job done.” 

Bulma’s hands instinctively grip her hips as she turns on him, “I thought you said there weren’t any other planets with a Santa Claus?” What’s gotten into him? Is Vegeta about to break his own no-lying rule? 

The memory makes Vegeta’s brow furrow tightly, “I forgot a very strange planet with a midwinter festival bearing a remarkable similarity to your Christmas and a being not unlike your Santa Claus.” 

Trunks sits further up, his shoulders straighten unconsciously trying to show his father genuine, respectful interest. “Really?! There _actually is_ a Santa Claus on another planet?!”

Bulma’s eyes dart to little Bra making sure she hasn’t caught the _truth_ in Trunks’ surprise. Thankfully for her son, the little girl is oblivious. Trunks winces apologies to his mom, recognizing his error. Vegeta ignores the entire exchange. 

“I’d forgotten it because there were so many other strange things about this planet more worth remembering than a fat man delivering presents in the night during wintertime, spouting Ho Ho Ho nonsense.” Vegeta ruminates about it a second, and smirks, “Sounded like he was pissing brandy and farting plum pudding to me.” Bra erupts in laughter. She loves when her Papa says bad words and her Mommy gets all huffy about it. 

Trunks’ eyes shoot wide, “Are you kidding me!? _Just like_ the…” He stops himself from saying ‘made up one’ with a swift look at Bra and Bulma, “Um, like Earth’s Santa Claus?!”

“I’ve found there is nothing wholly unique in the universe,” Vegeta shrugs. 

“Maybe he was Santa’s cousin! Or brother from another planet!” Bra is so excited she bounces around the room, sugar high still in full swing, rattling off every possible alien Santa scenario she can think of. 

Bulma sighs. Her daughter doesn’t know about Goku’s brother from another planet. It was one of those moments where the past and present exist simultaneously in your mind for a second. On that day, at Kami House, when she was so terrified of Raditz kidnapping poor baby Gohan… if she had known all that trauma would lead to this wonderful moment in this room with her beautiful family and her own Saiyan husband, she would have run up and hugged Raditz with all her might. Maybe even kissed him! She blinks back into reality out of her memories when Vegeta clears his throat correcting himself:

“Nothing wholly unique in the universe… except the way this planet traveled without a gravitational orbit and the way it looked.” 

“Oh yeah?” Bulma’s curiosity rises to match the children’s. 

“Fine. I’ll tell you a Christmas space story after all,” he smiles at Bra. She cheers and spins a little circle before plopping back down on her floor pillow and scooping fresh fistfuls of popcorn mixed with M&Ms into her mouth. 

“Once, when I did…” glancing at his daughter’s wide eyes, “real estate purchasing of new planets for Frieza’s empire…” He clears his throat at Trunks and Bulma’s smirks. 

“Was Frieza the mean boss you used to work for?” Bra’s adorable innocence makes Vegeta wince. He doesn’t know what’s more disturbing, her lack of Saiyan ferocity, which even Trunks exhibited at her age, or how besotted he’s become with her sweetness. She’s still staring at him wide-eyed and wonderful. 

“Yes, he was my mean boss. Now don’t interrupt. Nappa and I were asleep, en route to our next assignment, when our instrumentation went haywire, alarms blaring us awake. We were about to be intercepted!”

——————————————

“This can’t be right!” Vegeta spat at his pod’s computer and the intercom to Nappa, “it says a _PLANET_ is heading right for us!” Due to the projected speed of whatever the hell was in their way, Vegeta had to rapidly disengage the autopilot coordinates set by the Planet Trade Organization and shift course to survive. His fingers, hastened by a raging refusal to let some malfunction murder him, nearly broke the panels. Finally, the jolt from the correction slammed his skull against the headrest. 

“For fuck’s sake,” Nappa gargled in Vegeta’s ear. The pods were rough enough for someone of Nappa’s height and girth without a 90-degree turn at light speed. Vegeta chuckled as the string of curses continued while Nappa seemed to be examining his instruments. “That’s what my readings say as well. Someone must be screwing with us back at base.” Then, after the sound of Nappa’s fists making their usual attempts to ‘fix’ whatever problem they encountered with technology, 

“Vegeta, this says the planet is moving of its own accord without any sort of gravity from a star.” 

“You know that means we can’t technically call it a planet, right?” Vegeta sighed, “I’ve set communications to local while we investigate. I don’t want us broadcasting back to Frieza if this is a colossal waste of time!” 

“Good point,” Nappa sent his readings about the speed and autonomy of the planet-sized object to Vegeta’s screen. “Although, if it is a planet, Lord Frieza will want to get his hands on whatever technology or resources are making it move like that.” 

Vegeta studied the speed of their incoming unknown. “Nappa, tell me why the software is calling this object a planet?”

“Uh… lemme see… oh shit, because it’s covered with inhabitants, Prince Vegeta! The readings suggest a civilization.” 

“Careening through space of its own accord? What could jettison a planet across the galaxy with momentum comparable to gravitational planetary speeds?”  
Nappa grunted: “Right? Frieza will rampage if he finds out we skipped this new discovery and didn’t claim it for his bloated ego. Maybe we’ll get a decent commission out of it, anyway.”

“Better still, Nappa,” Vegeta turned his pod towards the trajectory of the planet, so he could see it coming, “the secrets of such a powerful force may hold the key to defeating Frieza once and for all!” 

“Huh,” Nappa’s keys were clicking on his end, “I’m searching other sources, but there aren’t any references to a planet of this nature in any universal cartography texts by the Planet Trade Organization.”

“Making it the perfect base of operations for a resistance force if we can map it and keep the trajectory off of Frieza’s software.” 

“We should be able to see it soon… uh… Vegeta? Do you… do you… see, I mean, are you seeing this shit?”

Yes, Vegeta saw Disc World, lazily hurtling towards them at planetary speed, but with the somber lilt of a sea turtle. “What in all the hells?!” 

————————————

“There’s no point describing it, I have to show it to you.” Vegeta asks Bulma for one of her holo drawing tablets and she lays it on the coffee table. He chuckles as his fingers trace in the air above the tool. “I’ve never seen anything stranger in all my traversing the universe.” A shape like a sea turtle comes to life in the living room.  
Bra points with enthusiasm, “That looks like old creepy Roshi-man’s pet turtle!” 

“Sweetie,” Bulma corrects, “he’s not a pet, they’re lifelong friends.” She cocks an eyebrow. “Vegeta, was the planet shaped like a turtle?”  
Vegeta doesn’t answer, but scrolls through a basic shape file, selects a cylinder and places it on the turtle’s back. He then cuts off 80% of the cylinder so that only a disk remains, balancing on the center of the turtle’s shell. 

“This is Disc World,” he takes a step back to admire his recreation. “Except there are four elephants, but I can’t draw elephants, so use your imaginations.” 

“Four elephants where?” Trunks stands and walks around the 3D rendering, “what are you talking about, Dad?” Vegeta sighs. This is why he doesn’t tell stories. “Disc World sits atop the backs of four elephants, so it lays flat, not wobbly like this looks. Because here it fits uncomfortably on the hump of the turtle, but in reality, four elephants stand on the turtle’s shell and on their backs rests the disk of land and ocean and sky that is Disc World.”

Bulma is standing now. “You’ve got to be shitting me!” Her scientific rationalism is too strong to censor her potty mouth for the children. 

“For each curse, put a coin in my purse!” Bra crows, loving it every time she can tell her parents what to do. 

“In a minute, sweetheart,” Bulma types some instructions into the holo-pad and a pre-generated rendering of an elephant appears, she copies it three times and places the creatures appropriately in Vegeta’s drawing. “Like this?” 

Vegeta huffs, he would’ve done that, but he wanted to get this story over with as soon as possible, “Yes, but I said you should use your imagination, I’m not going for pinpoint accuracy here.” 

“This place,” Trunks bends down for a better view of the finished product his mother made, “this place had a Christmas holiday?”

“And a Santa Claus?” Bra bounces, smiling up at the Disc, “was he a Santa Turtle?” 

“No, no, no,” Bulma waves her hands “we’re not telling a Christmas story anymore, children,” ignoring Bra’s cry of injustice, “Your father is explaining to me right now how a turtle and four elephants survived in the vacuum of space,” ignoring Vegeta’s loud groan, “and how big they were, how big this planet was, where it was located and about the inhabitants…” it suddenly occurs to her what probably happened to the inhabitants and she glances at her daughter, “…and if the planet still exists anymore?” 

“It’s Christmas story time, though Mommy!” Bra protests and slaps her hands on the pillows at her feet, “All that stuff is boring!” 

“Yes. That’s right, _Mommy_ ,” with the single word, Vegeta traps Bulma in the ‘How dare you put what you want over what our little girl wants?’ way her warden smile trapped him earlier. And she hears it and knows she’s caught in a potential hypocrisy that she’ll never live down. Bulma nods at Vegeta in a ‘this ain’t over, buddy’ sort of way. Vegeta waves at Bra to sit down and continues. “Disc World had Christmas, of a sort. The closest thing I’ve ever experienced to this bizarre human custom before.”

—————————————————

After their pods broke the atmosphere, the Saiyans saw it was snowing on the Disc. Through the falling flurries, they gazed at a great 10 mile spire of rock at the exact center point of Disc World, but Vegeta and Nappa chose not to land on the obvious seat of power within this society. 

Upon landing their pods with the usual explosions of dirt and debris in what the Saiyans would later discover were the Sto Plains where a series of simplistic wooden and metal towers dotted the barren landscape. Vegeta and Nappa took to the air to survey the cities on opposite horizons. 

Already their arrival caused a stir in what were now clearly primitive communication towers. The rush and whirl of clacks filled the snowy landscape, panels on each tower shifting and forming new arrangements of light and darkness, clearly sending detailed messages of alien doom from tower to tower in both directions towards the major cities. 

“Well, they know we’re here,” Vegeta snorted in disgust, “Which way would you like to go first?” 

“I don’t care which city we attack, but I’m starving. Let’s find some food before we go?” 

“All the potential this planet has to offer and you’re thinking with your stomach, Nappa?” 

“Aw, c’mon!” 

“Fine.” Vegeta turned on his scouter, “I could use a quick hunting warm up before we eradicate this place.” 

Nappa was well ahead of him “There don’t seem to be any beings of significant fighting force anywhere. Aw crap,” he hit some buttons, “An Enormous ki signature coming from the turtle is masking any detection of possible fighters on this planet, Vegeta.” 

“If that creature was capable of killing anything other than a giant sun-sized lettuce, I would be worried,” Vegeta sighed as five enormous ki signatures blipped to life at the very bottom of his scouter’s screen, “If yours is as useless as mine, you’ll have to hunt the old fashioned way.” 

Nappa adjusted his settings and saw Vegeta was right; he swallowed hard over a sudden concern. “Uh, Vegeta, that turtle may be stronger than Lord Frieza…” 

“Strength to carry a planet is not the same as fighting strength,” Vegeta snorted disapproval. “Do you hear something?” he asked after turning his scouter off and listening for potential sport. 

Nappa pointed toward distant mountains. “Seems some of this planet’s inhabitants can fly!” 

Out from the horizon there arose such a clatter, the Saiyans flew higher to see what was the matter. There, lumbering towards them, stopping at each of the communication towers in turn was a blood red sleigh pulled by four flying, fattened hogs. The sleigh’s driver was a bulbous, white-bearded man with two tusks poking out from his lower jaw to rest on his upper lip; which was more flowing mustache than lip. 

As he approached, Nappa and Vegeta heard him snorting and call:  
“On Gouger, On Rooter, On Tusker and Snouter!” 

\---------------------------------

"Aw, C’mon!" Trunks waves his arms in disbelief, "You're telling me this alien being spoke exactly like the imagin..." he grips a throw pillow so hard he nearly tears it in half, "I mean, the image of Santa Claus we have on Earth?" 

Bra whoops. "I told you he was Santa's brother! Santa's pig brother from the planet of pigs!" Bra slurps some ice water through a straw, then pauses before jumping up, announcing: "Great space story, Papa! I have to go to the bathroom." And she darts from the room and down the hall. 

"Okay, now, seriously, dad! You've got to be making this up, right?"

"Don't question my integrity, brat." 

"Vegeta, this was sweet of you to tell a Christmas space story just like Bra wanted, but you can't expect us to believe, I mean... Santa Claus isn't real here on Earth." 

"Now you’re patronizing me, woman? I can't believe the two of you! I succumb to your demands of participating in this farcical holiday by explaining how it was practiced elsewhere and all you do is question me?!" 

Trunks huffs, “I can't believe Santa Claus is _real_ somewhere else- as a pig person!" 

"Believe it, son. The Hogfather, as they call him, is as real as I am." 

Bulma flumps down on the couch beside Vegeta, "Why have you never mentioned it before?” hooking an arm in his, “How can you forget about a Christmas and a Santa Claus on another planet all these years we've been celebrating Christmas together with the kids? I mean, how could you forget a place like this?" and she gestures to the holo-rendered Disc. 

"I never forgot the Disc! Of course not. I only didn’t recall its Christmas-like aspects. Christmas is not a custom which held any meaning for me at all, until recently. There was no point in recalling that the Disc’s inane inhabitants had a festival with any relationship to your holiday until now. I’m only doing this for Bra and when she asked, I remembered the Hogfather." Seeing that Bulma and Trunks are still dissatisfied, he barks, “I'll remind both of you I lived longer in space than I have currently resided on this rock. I visited hundreds of worlds. Do you remember every detail of every damn custom of the countries you’ve visited on this ball of dirt?"

Trunks laughs. “Yeah, mom, what do the Norwegians call their Santa Claus?”

“Julenissen.” She bows at him from her seat on the couch. “He’s based on their original story of tomtes, who were like present-giving elves!” 

Vegeta guffaws. “Fine, wife, if you’d gone to Disc World, I’m sure you would have codified and documented every detail and committed 90% of it to memory, but we didn’t have that luxury. The civilizations we encountered didn’t matter, only the planet’s potential resources.” 

Bulma rubs his arm from shoulder to elbow, and in the closest she can muster to a begging voice, "You’ve got to map the coordinates of where in the universe you encountered this Disc World and where it was heading! Dad and I need to study this and figure out a trajectory.” Vegeta rolled his eyes so hard it actually might have hurt him. 

"If that is what it will take for you to believe I'm not lying to our child the way you both do with your Santa Claus nonsense?" Bulma clapped her hands in triumph.  
"You could call it your Christmas present for me!" 

Vegeta’s lips turn up at the corner, “I was going to get you the same thing I got you last year,” and bending his head down, he chomps his teeth at the skin just below her ear lobe. She expertly dodges, giggling. Trunks makes a show of sighing so his parents might remember he was still in the room and Bra would be back any second. Vegeta leans his head back over the bridge of the couch and groused. 

"Yes, I think I can recall which planet we were assigned to and the duration into our journey we were intercepted by the Disc. And approximate how far off course the Disc carried us while we were on land. That should get you started." 

Bulma threw her arms around his neck in a bear hug, her cleavage smushed against his shoulder. He reflexively gripped an arm around her waist, pulling her tighter. Bulma pecked his neck with a kiss. Before he can pull her playfully into his lap, Bra trudges back into the room. Everyone notices she’s not skipping or running. Vegeta and Bulma immediately glance at the clock. 

“What else was on the Disc planet, Papa?” she yawns. Oh, thank the Kais.

“We encountered many strange and fanciful beings during our brief encounter with the Disc.” Vegeta scoops her up in the universal signal of ‘it’s finally bedtime for these irritating brats.’ “I was told they were kept in existence purely by the beliefs of the Disc’s inhabitants.” 

"That can't be possible, that's not how physics works," Bulma says.

"But perhaps it is how reality works. As it was explained to me, think of honor, justice, and duty, we all believe in those things. Yet they do not exist in nature or in any part of physical reality. It is our belief in these concepts that makes them so." 

The room was quiet for a second. Bulma and Trunks were not used to Vegeta laying down philosophy so handily. 

"Well, I believe in Santa Claus!" Bra yawns happily in his arms to break the silence. 

“The Hogfather was kept alive by the belief of children all over his Disc and there is nothing wholly unique in the universe. So, perhaps your Santa exists as well.” 

“Did Saiyans have a Santa Claus?” Bra asks. 

“No,” Vegeta considers while climbing the stairs, “Winter was a feast time, though. A time for eating, drinking and making new Saiyans.” 

Bulma coos “Oh really?” and pinches his ass. 

Trunks attempts a nervous laugh. 

Bra is asleep by the landing at the top of the stairs. 

\---------------------------------------------------

The girls, Pan, Marin and Bra all gaggle together after Christmas dinner and discuss their toys, clothes and other great gifts Santa brought them.  
“I love the looks on their little faces,” Krillin sighs as the girls dash out of sight up to Bra’s room. Finally free of boring grownup dinner conversations.  
Vegeta snorts. “Tch. They don’t know whether to laugh, cry or piss themselves. That’s belief if I ever saw it!” Vegeta doesn’t realize the eggnog and hot apple cider were both spiked. So, drinking generous steins full of each in turn, the Saiyan Prince unknowingly loses his sobriety. 

After the Christmas dinner guests are all stuffed and everyone’s inebriated enough that Master Roshi’s mistletoe jokes finally start becoming funny, Bulma pulls out the holo tablet and her preliminary calculations about Disc World's current location in the universe based on Vegeta's memories. In full scientific conference presentation mode, Bulma tells everyone assembled in her dining room about the strange new planet Vegeta described last night. She brings up her projections of the Disc World’s coordinates.

“These should be accurate if it maintained any sort of logical course without sharp turns!” Bulma then presents a much better 3D rendering of what the planet must look like thanks to her design and modeling wizards at Capsule Corps (the ones who were single, childless, and more than willing to whip this up for a Christmas bonus rather than spend the whole day with their extended families).

“Neato, Bulma!” Goku pokes at the holo rendering like it might respond to his touch. 

Roshi elbows Turtle, who just got his flippers around a mixed drink glass, making the beverage topple. Roshi laughs, “You think you’ve got it bad? Check that guy out!” pointing with his beer bottle at the Great A’tuin. “No more complaining about house work!” 

“Bulma, dear,” Bunny pipes up from the kitchen, “Isn’t this supposed to be a Christmas party? I’m afraid you may be boring your friends to death!”  
Before Bulma can defend herself, Vegeta blurts: 

“Death’s not so bad!” Standing with some effort, “I’ve met the guy here on the Disc. And he’s a good guy. Rational. You’d want him as a soldier in your army if you could get him.”

“Vegeta, what are you…?” and Bulma realizes he’s probably drunk. She blushes recalling how well his inebriation worked out for her after her birthday party earlier this year. She decides she’ll go with it. Vegeta nods at her, taking the podium, as it were, from his wife at the front of the dining room. 

“Death tells it like it is,” he smiles, sitting down, finally realizing that he doesn’t feel 100 percent like himself. 

“I don’t understand,” Dende pesters Vegeta, “These immortal entities you discovered on this other planet were nothing like ours? I mean, their death god moves among mortals? Does he not have a separate after life dimension?” 

"Ha! Yes. I had to stop telling our daughter this story because we'd reached the gory parts.” He rolls another swallow of what he now recognizes as alcoholic cider in his mouth and chuckles. “With Saiyans, sooner or later, every story is about blood." 

\---------------------------------

In a single fiery blast, Nappa shot and killed Snouter, the oldest of the Hogfather's hogs, as the sleigh the hog led approached them in the air. The charbroiled boar torpedoed to the ground in a flourish of sweet-smelling fat and a hail of powdery snow upon impact. Nappa dove after it and landed by his feast. He tore a leg off poor old Snouter and began to devour it with Saiyan appetite. The sleigh, meanwhile, swiveled and jerked in the air, as the remaining boars lost their minds with fear, anger and grief. Vegeta laughed at the display as finally the creature in the sleigh regained enough control to land several dozen yards away in a puff of dirt and snow. Vegeta landed next to Nappa, and preferring his meal slightly more raw, found a haunch that hadn’t been totally blackened. It sizzled white and pink and shimmered with fresh blood and grease. 

Before Vegeta could get a bite, the Hogfater came stomping towards them.

Nappa raised a shank in greeting to the bearded man in red and laughed, "Never had flying pig before, old man! This is great! You should sell these.” And he coughed on some flesh and grizzle, “I mean, if you were going to live through the night, that is.” 

The Hogfather’s form became more bestial before them, his face looking more and more like a wild hog, his tusks extending and eyes going bright red. 

“Look, Vegeta, he can transform. How about that?” and they both laughed. The Hogfather said nothing and tackled Nappa. As the two were of similar height, stature and weight, the wrestling that ensued was nothing short of gladiatorial. Fists pummeled and grunts echoed as the winds kicked up a driving torrential downfall of a snow storm. Vegeta stood chewing and watching with boredom. Finally, when Nappa succeeded in tossing the Hogfather a good distance, Vegeta casually flicked a finger to disintegrate the nuisance.

The energy blasted directly through the Hogfather, doing him no harm and setting a clack communication tower ablaze instead. 

“What are you?!” Vegeta raged, firing ki blast after ki blast at the towering giver of gifts to children. The Hogfather would not answer. Instead he tried to punch Nappa, as the larger Saiyan charged him once again. They exchanged blows, but Nappa was considerably more resilient. The Hogfather could cause him no injuries! Yet, for Nappa’s part, though he could throw the Hogfather, burn his face, and knock out his tusks, in a few minutes the old hog-man looked just the same, as if no harm had come to him from Nappa’s efforts. Once Nappa stood away, panting and growling frustration, Vegeta tried his hand once more, raining fiery death on the landscape, and trying in vain to kill the Hogfather’s remaining hogs. The Hogfather was always too fast for that, blinking out of sight for a moment and protecting them until finally he sent them home to the Bone Castle. The Hogfather grew bored with Vegeta’s onslaught and instead strode over to what remained of the carcass of Snouter. 

As the storm died down to casual snowfall of fat, wet flakes, the combatants found themselves at an embarrassing stalemate. Each slumped backwards in the snow away from one another. Despite the insults hurled at him, the Hogfather refused to talk to the Saiyans or even look at them anymore, but scooped up his dead pig comrade and snatched the leg away from Nappa. He could always get another pig. Snouter was the oldest though, and had been with the Hogfather the longest, so there was an understandable sense of loss. 

Meanwhile, Vegeta raged about destroying the entire accursed planet. He tried to locate his pod in the snow. Their scouters were just as useless in finding their crafts as they’d been in locating other lifeforms besides the elephants and turtle below. Nappa stood back as Vegeta’s anger ignited the snow around him so that he stood on wet grassy ground surrounded on all sides by six foot high, steaming, melting, snow drifts. 

"SO, YOU'RE THE CATACLYSM, ARE YOU?"

Death stood looking down at Vegeta from the brim of the Saiyan’s simmering snow cone. Death was enjoying a fine Hogswatch at his home when he found it odd that all his hour glasses were rapidly losing sand at once, as if a world-ending cataclysm was upon the Disc. Despite his strict adherence to a positive work/non-life balance, Death found it imperative to come and investigate. Death of Rats, who also noticed all the rats might soon die together, poked his head over the rim to look down at Vegeta. Quoth the Raven, who was otherwise bored with what Death called Hogswatch celebrations, swooped in to see the cataclysm for himself. 

“The faces of a cataclysm never cease to surprise me,” Quoth cocked his head left and right and flapped his wings a little to get comfortable when he landed on the debris of a clack tower. 

“Are you the Kai of this world?” Nappa demanded, approaching the new crowd of ominous onlookers in order to protect the Prince if necessary. “Not often we get a deity coming to beg for mercy, eh Vegeta?”

“Certainly not.” Vegeta flew up out of the hole to inspect this towering skeleton with a scythe. “What are you supposed to be? The God of Death?” 

“NOT A KAI, NOR A GOD, I AM AN ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION,” Death considered for a moment, “JUST LIKE HIM," pointing to the Hogfather. 

"I see.” Vegeta chortled, “You've come to the bastard's rescue! Which means he can be killed!" 

"YES, WE RECENTLY LEARNED HE CAN." At which point Death turned on the Hogfather with a sound that might be called a sigh. "IS THIS PART OF YOUR TRADITION NOW? EVERY HOGWATCH NIGHT IS INTERRUPTED BY A FIGHT WITH THESE SORTS?" He gestured at the Saiyans with his scythe. Then his tone changed, if that was possible, to something of almost mirth. "DOES THIS MEAN I HAVE TO TAKE THE REINS AGAIN? I WOULDN'T MIND, YOU KNOW." 

Hogfather pointed at the carcass of Snouter. 

"OH. SO THEY STARTED IT? HMMM, YES, THAT IS UNFORTUNATE. BUT THIS CAN'T BE THE FIRST ONE YOU'VE LOST OVER THE MILLENNIA?" 

The Hogfather snorted. Then grunt-grumbled a response the others didn't hear. 

"HMM. I WOULD THINK FINDING A NEW HOG WOULD BE EASIER FOR YOU THAN ANYONE."

Vegeta couldn’t believe their utter disregard for his fury, even after these interlopers called the Prince a cataclysm. “We don’t have time for this nonsense! Tell us what makes this planet mobile of its own accord, separate from the gravity of a star?”

“Oh? Are you blind?” Quoth swooped around Vegeta’s head, getting a closer look at the Saiyan’s eyes. “Did you not see the Great A’tuin before you landed? The mighty turtle swims this planet around the universe, obviously.”

“Prince Vegeta,” Nappa stopped Vegeta from cooking the bird. “Perhaps we should leave this place? It seems to be more trouble than its worth. We can’t harness the power of the turtle. And we can’t kill it. It’s stronger than Lord Frieza!”

“PRINCE, HMM? WELL, ISN’T THAT SOMETHING?” Death also made mental note of the Lord’s name Nappa mentioned. You never know when knowing someone’s name might come in handy. As the Hogfather stomped off towards his sleigh with Dead Snouter in tow, he did not seem satisfied with this conclusion to his brawl with the Saiyans. To which Death called out after him. "THEY DON'T APPEAR TO BE HAPPY EITHER. NOBODY WINS. A FINE COMPROMISE."

"Saiyans don't compromise!” Vegeta bellowed, “You cannot stop me from sending this planet to Hell!" 

"YOU MAY DESTROY THE DISC, TAKE OUT AN ELEPHANT OR TWO, BUT I DOUBT THE GREAT A’TUIN WOULD LIKE HAVING HIS OR HER LIFE’S LABORS LOST. I DON'T PRESUME TO KNOW THE MIND OF A'TUIN. BUT THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THE TURTLE WOULDN'T FOLLOW YOU AROUND THE UNIVERSE SEEKING REVENGE." Death, though rarely having an occasion to lie to anyone, found himself quite good at suppositions of truth that were not exactly lies, but certainly not accurate representations of reality either. In truth, there was no reason to believe the great turtle even knew a thing about the Disc, its inhabitants or the concept of revenge. But there's no need for the Saiyans to know any of that. 

Vegeta considered and finally barked a command at Nappa. "This fucking place is more trouble than it's worth! Nappa! We're leaving!" He wheeled on Death: “Don’t confuse our departure with clemency. It is a worse sentence for this wretched planet’s inhabitants to go on living in their squalor than receive the mercy of a quick death at my hands!”

“Yes, of course, Prince Vegeta,” Nappa saluted, “Except, we cannot find our pods until this snow passes.” 

To be hospitable, and because he’d never had a cataclysmic event over to his house before, Death invited the Saiyans to celebrate Hogswatch with him. It was there that they heard the tale of the prior year’s Hogswatch, Mr. Teatime, and how important belief is in creating the principles of the universe that Vegeta most espoused: honor, duty and of course, revenge. All were concepts as irrational as the Hogfather, and like the Hogfather, all needed belief to become real. Vegeta may have forgotten the Hogfather and Hogswatch, until Bra asked about Christmas in outer space, but he never forgot Death or the Disc World. 

\---------------------------------

“The moral of the story is there are many things in this universe that don’t actually exist, but believing in them makes them so.” Vegeta reaches for the bowl of popcorn mixed with M&Ms. He’s earned junk food. Talking for that long without stopping makes him ravenous. There better be another ham or two in the fridge.

Most of the guests left an hour or so ago. When the other parents took their little girls home, Bra flumped down on the couch; listening to the end of her father’s story, fading in and out.  
Trunks and Bulma however, remain transfixed. 

“Dad… that’s… like the first story you’ve ever told me about outer space and how crazy it is! You make me want to go galaxy hopping like you and mom!” 

“I wouldn’t call your mother’s suicide mission to a dead planet ‘galaxy hopping,’” and he tucks his head to the side, dodging the pillow she throws at him, “and most of the stories I could tell are not so pleasant.” 

Bulma glances at Bra to make sure she is still snoring and whispers: “You know, you can’t complain about us telling Bra that Santa Claus is real now. She has to believe the little lies first, right?” 

Vegeta growls, but he’s smiling. His eyes are glazed over, just like everyone else’s. It’s beyond time for a midnight snack and a soft bed. 

“I wanna go there!” Bra burst into wakefulness with the definitive shout, pointing at the Disc rendering before slumping forward again as though she’d never moved. 

Bulma snaps her fingers. “We could ask Whis about this Death Kai you met! He must still be around, somewhere. Whis could find him.” 

“I think Disc World is a place best left to its own devices,” Vegeta smiles.

“In the spirit of Christmas,” Bulma sighs, “I guess Trunks, Bra and I can hope for a visit to the Disc someday in the future.”

Trunks chuckled, “That’s right mom. It’s a big part of belief, is the hope.”


End file.
